January 9, 2012 - 3:01am
An apology and explanation
BY JOSEPH LICHTERMAN
Truthfulness is the central tenet of everything we do at The Michigan Daily. By producing content in the Daily that is accurate and original, you, our readers, can be assured that the information you’re reading is trustworthy.
A column in the Nov. 17, 2011 edition of The Michigan Daily, written by a former Daily columnist, didn’t meet this standard.
The column was inspired by a piece written by David Brooks of The New York Times (The Life Reports, 10/27/11). Though Brooks’s column was mentioned in the Daily article, the columnist used many of the same words and phrases as Brooks without proper attribution. The first few paragraphs of the Daily’s column were also structured nearly identically to Brooks’s.
This was an institutional failing. We, as editors, never should have let this column go to print, and for that, we are deeply sorry.
After a thorough investigation of the columnist’s prior work for the Daily, this was the only incident we identified. Still, we take all cases of plagiarism seriously as they violate the truthfulness that the Daily stands for.
We will use this as an opportunity to improve our internal safeguards to certify the originality of all content we publish. We’ve already added enhanced plagiarism checks to our normal editing process, and we’re planning to revamp our training program to better teach our staff what is considered plagiarism.
We hope that these steps will help us maintain your trust, because as the only daily newspaper in Ann Arbor, there’s nothing we value more than that.
Joseph Lichterman
Editor in Chief
